Citrix Synergy Barcelona 2012 – day 1

Citrix Synergy Barcelona 2012

After two days of the exclusive Citrix partner event, now Citrix Synergy is started for Customers as well with the first day of Synergy. This day is also the day of Mark T’s keynote, containing the latest news and announcements. Thanks to the community we made it as a trending topic during the keynote and we definately Fedd the Buzz 😉

Keynote

I could repeat all the news on this blog, but I’ll just refer you to the link with the latest news from Citrix itself. The keynote this year didn’t feel that spectaculair as the one in San Francisco, even though we had more than enough news and announcement. But I do think the announcements follwed eachother so rapidly we barely had time to take it all in and match it to our own visions and customer demands. So I’m taking a couple of days to have it all sink in and comment on it.

I, for one, want to get hands-on experience with the latest GoTo products, as there’s a lot of movement in that area. So far I haven’t found a dutch customer yet that is looking into that level of collaboration, but I sure would love the chance to show them the power of it!. And podio sure is getting a very powerfull instrument to combine the strengths of the individual products and offer this great platform combining social and business collaboration. Yes, I’m excited about the direction podio is taking 🙂

And off course the biggest announcement was the partnering of Citrix and Cisco, resulting in an even bigger platform to improve and position NetScaler into the market. Combining the Citrix and Cisco vision, knowledge and drive is gonna rise to great hights …. no presure guys … and girls.

I know this is the time to enrich my own NetScaler knowledge and get a grasp at the many features and functionality it has to offer!

NetScaler lab

I signed up for my first NetScaler learning lab in advance, so after the keynote I was very excited to join the learning lab on the NetScaler and have my own hands-on experience and test some of the functionality it has to offer. That definately wasn’t as easy as I hoped it to be. Working with the NetScaler is a whole different ball game, as you really need to understand network traffic, protocols and OSI model layers. On top of that I felt overwhelmed with all the options offered through the menu’s when I first logged onto the webGUI. So many options and no clue where to start. I most definately need to take the training courses and maybe even some professional guidance to find my way around the menu and alle the settings you can configure. Having only 3 hours to play around with that NetScaler is by far not enough to get a hang of it.

So I have my first new goal for 2013 set out for me 😉

Let’s network some more

After the learning lab and a quick trip to the hotel and back, it was time to join the Citrix Benelux lounge party. Walking into the lounge I felt proud at the many dutch attendees that were present. For a small country, we sure have a very active community and good presence during this years Synergy. I had a good time catching up with alot of colleagues, community members and Sales reps 🙂

From the lounge party on it was time to join the Citrix party as well and meet the person behind those Twitter nicks and community ‘legends’, like Andrew, Alex, Denis, Helge and Gabe. Guys that enspire me to set high goals for myself and be proud of being a Geek and making a difference in the community. So I do appologize if you caught me staring at you in awe and needing a couple of minutes to realize we are all sharing the same passion for our work and the Citrix products. I sure felt honored meeting you and having a drink and good conversations together. I’m all fired up to contribute even more actively to the community and share my own visions and ideas with you!

Esther has been working in different roles and functions as an IT consultant ever since she finished her Masters degree in Computer Science in 1997. She has worked as a web developer, database administrator, and server administrator until she discovered how Server-Based Computing ( SBC ) combined servers, desktops, and user experience in one solution. Esther has been specializing in virtualization solutions such as SBC, VDI, application, and server virtualization for over eight years now and is currently working as a Senior Consultant at PepperByte, where she designs and implements Citrix® solutions for both small-business and large-enterprise infrastructures scaling from 100 to 15,000 users. In january 2014 her first book Citrix XenApp 6.5 Expert Cookbook was published by Packt Publishing.

Esther is awarded as a Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) from 2015 – 2017.

Esther is awarded as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in 2017.